[From the Political-Organisational Report adopted at the
Fourth Party Congress, January 1988.]

On December 8, 1987, President Reagan and General Secretary
Gorbachev signed a pact in Washington which is aimed at eliminating an entire
category of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles. We share the jubilation of
the people of the world and welcome this pact. This agreement, though quite
insufficient in terms of quantity of nuclear arsenal (only 4 per cent) it seeks
to eliminate, signifies a good beginning and has been made possible due to the
combined impact of a variety of factors, viz., the economic crisis in the USA
and the imperative need for economic rationalisation in the USSR, the hazards of
nuclear technology at a point of its development as witnessed in certain leaks
in American nuclear plants as well as the infamous Chernobyl accident, the
growing intensity of peace movements in Western Europe and the USA, and, of
course, the peace offensive launched by Mikhail Gorbachev, and so on and so
forth.

As a word of caution we must reiterate here that the premise of peace
offensive as outlined by Gorbachev in his November address, visualising an
imperialist system without the danger of war, without militarisation of the
economy and without neo-colonial exploitation, a capitalist system peacefully
competing with a socialist system, presents imperialism in rosy colours, and
hence cannot be accepted. The struggle of the people of the Third World against
neo-colonial exploitation and domination, peace movements of European and
American peoples, working class struggle against the militarisation of their
respective economies, and political and diplomatic initiatives of powerful
socialist countries will ultimately create condition for the destruction of the
imperialist system and only with its destruction will the danger of war be
finally resolved.